Session announcement: The power of light
When it comes to our health and wellbeing, lighting probably isn’t the first thing we think of. The phrase ‘healthy lifestyle’ is more likely to bring to mind things like sleep, exercise, and a balanced diet.
Yet lighting is also a crucial component in our wellbeing – both at home, and at work – as Shelley James, an international expert on light and wellbeing, knows. Following a traumatic head injury which led to extreme photosensitivity, Shelley pivoted her creative career to focus on light, working with arts and scientific organisations and launching campaigns to raise awareness about the link between light and wellbeing.
As Shelley writes on her website: “A shocking rise in chronic conditions have been directly linked to our twilight indoor lives, from depression and learning difficulties to obesity, heart disease and cancer.”
On a more positive note, light can be used to improve our wellbeing and happiness. In Shelley’s words: “Healthy lighting can boost your productivity, memory and mood. It can even help you to reduce your carbon footprint.”
If you’re a manager of a care home, you have the chance to change the way you use light, to improve the wellbeing of yourself, your colleagues, and – crucially – your residents, for whom this is not a workplace but their home.
Shelley is a TEDx and keynote speaker, WELL advisor and consultant at the Design Age Institute at the Royal College of Art. Her clients include global lighting and technology brands, regulators, healthcare and education trusts, architects and designers, academic institutions and museums. Shelley is currently leading an international network of healthcare providers and academics from the UK, USA, Canada, Denmark and Norway to understand the impact of light on health and wellbeing for residents and staff.
Join Shelley in the Technology theatre to:
- Discover the power of light to transform your team's and your residents' wellbeing
- Learn how to avoid the negative physical effects of bad lighting, particularly related to sleep
- Consider how much natural light you get a day - and find out why it matters
- Leave with five key tips to use lighting in your care home, or in your residents' homes, to improve people's happiness and health
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